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Talk:BreakTheInternet/@comment-5261392-20170414170425/@comment-5483266-20170415000718
Ugh. Thank you so much, Jo. I really appreciate you expressing your concerns about this. Speaking as a queer Asian diasporan woman myself, it's honestly a slap in the face to see someone who shares so many facets of my identity portrayed as an irredeemable rape apologist on screen constructed to be hated and reviled among the fandom. That is not representation I claim. Although I believe that the ultimate villain of this show is rape culture, toxic masculinity, and deeply ingrained societal misogyny, Courtney was still made to be the embodiment of a greater evil that contributed in killing Hannah and her character exists to perpetuate this disgusting, vicious cycle without a chance to redeem herself or, from what you've said, allowed to have more nuanced characterization and depth that could at the very least generate the same degree of empathy as her peers. Frankly, to say this is problematic is being generous. Most of the other characters were complicit in this system as well, to my understanding, and yet Courtney is somehow the one that is subjected to the most heinous vitriol with the exception of Bryce. Obviously, much of that's primarily due to fandom being fandom, but my issue is that the show racebent her and made her queer only to vindicate that hatred because of her deplorable actions towards Hannah. Now I agree that 13RW offers authentic, true to life teenage characters and the show itself is fairly diverse in a number of ways, but why couldn't the triple minority be a flawed, intricately human character without compromising her humanity? Why did she have to be the face of rape apologism and the various ills that plague our society? Here’s the thing: I am used to consuming entertainment that personally insults my people or excludes me entirely from it. So naturally, when they do feature a prominent Asian character in the cast, I can discern whether or not they’re here for representation or “diversity” points. There’s a special kind of ignorance and insensitivity in justifying a marginalized Asian woman being cast as an extremely problematic figure without acknowledging its significance in the greater context of the film/television industry: the fact that Asians can only ever seem to get work as series regulars if they’re playing unlikable villains with defunct moral compasses. For Asian women, this is a double bind since we live on the intersections of gender and race and constantly have to choose between both in moving throughout the world. When we’re not perceived as perpetual foreigners who don’t belong, Dragon Ladies, prostitutes, factory workers, silent shadows, sex slaves, accountants, desexualized and objectified china dolls, irrelevant background props amid other Orientalist notions of Asian people, we’re soulless assassins, femme fatales and evil vixens with no conscience. There is no middle ground. And to hear that Courtney is portrayed as a selfish, raging bitch with no potential for growth or redemption, in addition to being a closeted lesbian, only further reinforces those noxious stereotypes. Sure, Courtney may count as "representation" for deviating from the archetype of the hypersexualized/infantilized, submissive Asian woman, and that is subversive, albeit marginal progress, but vilifying her and making a closeted lesbian of colour morally corrupt isn't anything new or particularly innovative either. Courtney and characters like her are far from an anomaly. Asians of all genders have been villains for centuries - that is, when they're allowed to exist on Western screen. They're the most prominent stereotype of my race in Hollywood cinematic history. I wouldn't otherwise have a problem with Courtney's portrayal and could even appreciate her role in this respect if bonafide positive Asian representation wasn't so scarce in all forms of media (it's 2017 and we're still being whitewashed and replaced by “evolved” white people, lol) and on the condition that there are more complex, compelling, masterfully written Asian characters in pop culture that are good, decent people to balance Courtney out. Instead, I can only think of A HANDFUL of characters of specifically East Asian descent who are multidimensional in their own right and constitute people the audience can sympathize with and root for (although more often than not, they choose not to for qwhite interesting reasons and by interesting I mean racist). But whenever we do get strong, intriguing Asian characters that shatter those stereotypes of docility, they’re distorted and twisted to fit the racist narratives listed above because no one knows how to evaluate these characters through a cultural lens that so rarely features Asians as heroes in Western storytelling. Look no further than our very own Esme Song, who is an emotionally damaged, mentally ill, unapologetically sexual Asian woman with an assertive, non-stereotypical personality and a tragic backstory. Yet how is she treated? When she’s not casually being slutshamed by several characters who should know better or denigrated as a “crazy pill-popper” or branded as “abusive” by the same people who stanned Zoe in 13A and adore Effy Stonem, she is literally marketed as a white boy’s “Bad Influence” by her own show, dismissed as an inferior Imogen 2.0 before her character even debuted, and overlooked both by the narrative and by fandom for Neon Smurfette Lola, Zoe, and Frankie. Nevertheless, I have no qualms considering Esme valid representation because I know she has her moments of humanity and benevolence seeping through that catty exterior of hers, and she embodies mental illness in an unconventional, unpolished way that resonates with me, even if the writers don’t care to extend her the courtesy of character development to the same extent that they’ve granted almost everyone else. Esme is undeniably problematic, yet she is always singled out for being the very antithesis of Asian-coded stereotypes. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. There is a case to be made that people of color deserve representation of all forms, including those that reflect unsavory characters and antiheroes, but this only measures up if you have an equal amount of commendable, heroically-aligned characters of that race to counter it. As one of the most underrepresented ethnic communities in media, Asians don’t have that luxury. When you’re an outlier in an industry that still doesn’t respect you enough to cast you as actual human beings, much less as protagonists on the rare instances when they aren’t actively erasing your existence, being a triple minority embodying traits that elicit such intense hatred and revulsion holds far more weight, and is very much a burden that accompanies a visible POC playing a terrible person. It’s only exacerbated when people view this show with a Stan Twitter complex, which many of them do. Courtney being a villain is not revolutionary or groundbreaking, and honestly, I’m a little uneasy seeing how quick audiences are to blindly tolerate or defend this casting without reaching out or listening to potential critiques by the very same minority groups she represents; the fact that it doesn’t even register to think critically about a rare queer Asian female character being written as a despicable monster who was partially responsible for triggering an innocent girl into suicide and what kind of representation that entails and conveys in the grander scheme of the media they consume doesn’t bode well. To clarify, Courtney being a reprehensible person while living as an Asian lesbian is not necessarily the problem. Social evils such as bullying and abuse apologia apply to people of all races and sexualities, and to argue that a character who just so happens to be a multi-minority can’t engage in shitty behaviour is pure tripe and unrealistic. I’m just frustrated and disillusioned that in a cast that’s acclaimed for its diversity, the token Asian woman on the show who is a part of two other minority groups is made to support a rich, white rapist and has a negative character trajectory with no possibility for absolution. Her presence as one of the only prominent Asian characters in such a pivotal television phenomenon is a scathing reminder to me that it’s infinitely more common for the tiny fragments of representation I receive to come at the expense of my lived experiences and emotional truth. It shouldn’t feel like labour for me to find more characters that I can relate to in uniquely personal ways and who aren’t rendered as atrocious, amoral or immoral people when they’re given the space to be actual individuals, but it does. When Asian bodies are not being appropriated, exploited, devalued, maimed, violated, or bleached out in fiction, the other inevitable option is to vilify the people and deny them respectability. It hurts me to see the only relevant queer Asian woman in this context being collectively and unanimously despised by the fandom and validated for it by the narrative, when uplifting Asian representation that transcends mere visibility is so few and far between. It’s just a salt-laced insult to a perennial injury. So yeah, I think Jo and I are entitled to question the casting choice. TL;DR - Calling for better representation and humanization of a historically demonized ethnicity in a project shouldn't be a matter of Discourse™. I’m tired.